Merry Christmas in July!
There's something magical about a quiet winter night. The stars are twinkling overhead, the houses are glowing with warm light, and the peaceful mountain landscape feels like the perfect place to celebrate the season. Soft ink blending creates a dreamy evening sky, while a touch of sparkle in the windows and stars adds just the right amount of Christmas magic. That's exactly the cozy feeling I wanted to capture with today's Christmas card!
One of my favorite parts of creating this design was using a partial die-cutting technique with a border die. I wanted to try this technique after I saw an older YouTube video from Jennifer McGuire and I had the perfect border die for this. This can be a simple card as shown in the card on top or step it up into a shaker card as shown in the card on the bottom.
To create these cards you will need the following from Kat Scrappiness:
Layered Mountains & Tree Lines Stencils
Holiday Village Border Craft Die
Never Ending Rectangle Craft dies
Sentiment Shoppe - Within the Fold: "Christmas Greetings"
6mm Mirrored Clear Solid Stars Sequins
Fluffy White Snow Topping & Filler and Christmas Jubilee Sequin Mix (for the shaker card)
Kat’s Color Studio - Premium Cardstock - Smooth Bright White 120lb
In addition to the above, you will need the following:
Gold embossing powder
Heat tool to melt the embossing powder
Stamping positioner or stamping block
Foam tape (for the shaker card)
Gold glitter cardstock
Ink pads in colors: green, gray, and blue
Low tack tape
Blending brushes such as Kat’s Crafty Dabbers or 1/2' Stencil & Ink Blending Brushes
Die cutting machine
After you have gathered your supplies, let’s make a card!
Step #1 – Background panel
Trim a piece of white cardstock to an A2 sized panel. I used a grip mat to secure my panel and the stencils. If you don’t have a grip mat, you can adhere the panel to your worksurface but I would start with a 6x6 sized piece of cardstock and then trim it down to the A2 sized.
Using the Layered Mountains & Tree Lines Stencil, line up the mountain stencil onto your panel somewhere in the middle.
Ink blend the gray ink onto the cardstock, having it run from darker to lighter from top to bottom.
Next, select one of the tree stencils and line that up onto the panel and ink blend the trees with green ink pad. I went a little darker towards the top of the trees so that it covered the mountain and then a little lighter going towards the bottom.
Next, take the mountain stencil you used earlier, flip it around and lay ton top of the mountains so you can ink up the sky.
Take your blending brush and ink blend the sky with your blue inks. I made it darker towards the top and a little lighter when I went near the mountains. Set that aside to dry as you complete the next steps.
Step #2 – The Village Border
I laid the village border craft die onto my surface and selected a rectangle die that would die cut the scene.
Take that rectangle die and die cut about 7 or 8 pieces using any type of cardstock (Helpful Hint: use your scraps or colored cardstock that you don’t like or use a lot). Glue all of them together to create a stack.
Take the village border craft die and place that onto a white A2 sized cardstock about 2/3rd of the way down and tack the sides down using low tack tape.
On the back, take low tack tape and tape the rectangle stack. Helpful Hint: I raised the panel up to the light so I can see where the village border die is. I then placed the rectangle stack behind and lined up the rectangle stack where I wanted the village to be die cut. The light really helps because you don’t want to die cut any of the bottom, just that certain spot on the border die. I was careful to make sure that right and left sides were even.
Depending on your die cutting machine, you may or may not need any additional shims, other than one or two plates. For my machine, I used the top and bottom plate only which gave enough pressure. You may need to try different ‘sandwiches’ or remove one of the layers from the rectangle stack. You want enough pressure to die cut only where the rectangle stack is. When I first attempted this part, I didn’t have enough rectangle die cuts and it was still die cutting more of what I didn’t want so I just added a couple more rectangle die cuts until it did what I wanted it to. So, just be patient and try adding or removing the die cuts until you get it right.
After you run it through your die cutting machine, this is what it will look like.
Step #4 – Partial Die Cutting the Window
Take the same rectangle die you used to make the stack and line that up onto your panel. This is where you can determine how much sky you want to have in the window. Once you have it where you want it, tack that down with low tack tape.
Take the top plate of your die cutting machine, and place that on top of your panel but only the part that you want it to die cut. Since one side of the village border is higher than the other side, I have my plate at a slight angle. You can run it through straight and use a craft knife or paper trimmer after you die cut so you can remove the negative piece.
Once you have completed that step, it will look like this:
Step #5 – Adding the stencil background
Take your panel and see where you would like it placed onto the background panel. Make a small pencil line on the background panel and trim off the excess. Now is a good time to check to see if you like the sky. If you want it more darker towards the top, go ahead and add some more ink. This is also a good time to add some little snowcaps to the mountains by using a white gel pen.
Step #6 – Sentiment
Using the Sentiment Shoppe Within the Fold: Christmas Greetings stamp set, select the sentiment “Merry Christmas from our home to yours”. Place your village panel into your stamp positioner and lay the stamp onto the panel where you would like to have the sentiment. Ink up the stamp with the clear embossing ink, remove the panel, apply the gold embossing powder and melt the powder using the heat tool. If you aren’t using a stamp positioner, you can use stamping blocks for this step. Helpful Hint: apply anti-static powder to your panel before stamping. This will inhibit any embossing powder to stick to the panel where you don’t it. If there is any gold embossing powder in any areas that shouldn’t be, you can gently remove it with a small brush.
Step #7 – Village Windows
Cut small pieces of gold cardstock and glue them behind each of the houses.
Step #8 – Putting it all together
Add liquid adhesive behind the village panel and adhere that onto your stenciled background. Glue the Silver Starlight Sequins around the sky.
Adhere the completed panel to an A2 top folding card base.
And that completes the card!
You can step this up by turning it into a shaker card by using the additional products listed above such as foam tape, acetate and other shaker bits. In the shaker card, I added some snow caps onto the mountains and trees. I also colored in the holiday village using alcohol markers.
Here is a close-up of the shaker card.
Here are both cards again:
Sometimes the simplest scenes tell the sweetest stories, and I hope this little holiday village inspires you to create a handmade card that brings warmth and joy to someone's mailbox this Christmas.
We would love to see what you create using Kat Scrappiness products especially the new releases and cardstock! And don’t forget to enter the monthly card challenges!
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Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting!
Crafty Bo
